More Hunting Wasps 



pares the mind for an exceptional velocity 

 and announces a race of peerless coursers? 

 Nimble diggers of burrows and eager hunt- 

 ers the Tachytes are, to be sure, but they 

 are no better than a host of rivals. Not the 

 Sphex, nor the Ammophila, nor the Bembex, 

 nor many another would admit herself 

 beaten in either flying ar running. At the 

 nesting-season, all this tiny world of hunt- 

 resses is filled with astounding activity. The 

 quality of a speedy worker being common to 

 all, none can boast of it to the exclusion of 

 the rest. 



Had I had a vote when the Tachytes was 

 christened, I should have suggested a short, 

 harmonious, well-sounding name, meaning 

 nothing else than the thing meant. What 

 better, for example, than the term Sphex? 

 The ear is satisfied and the mind is not cor- 

 rupted by a prejudice, a source of error to 

 the beginner. I have not nearly as much 

 liking for Ammophila, which represents as a 

 lover of the sands an animal whose esta- 

 blishments call for compact soil. In short, if 

 I had been forced, at all costs, to concoct a 

 barbarous appellation out of Latin or Greek 

 in order to recall the creature's leading char- 

 acteristic, I should have attempted to say, a 

 passionate lover of the Locust. 

 128 



